Tattycoram (20 page)

I folded up the paper and handed it back to Hopkins.

“What will you gain by this?”

“Money, of course, but that is not the main thing. All my life I have been subjected to insults and backbiting. All my life I have turned the other cheek, as the Bible instructs us. Well, I am tired of turning the other cheek. I want revenge. He cannot use me like this — it's shameful. I wish I had never seen Urania Cottage!”

“Surely he has not caricatured Urania Cottage?”

“Of course not, he's too clever for that. He wouldn't want to get in trouble with his rich friend. And Urania Cottage is no more, I hear, but that is by the way. No, what I meant is that if I hadn't been persuaded to go there, I would never have met Mr. Dickens and,” she added in a low voice, “would never have set foot in Australia.”

She stood up, the book on her lap falling to the floor, came over to me and pushed up her sleeves.

“Mark this, Harriet, mark this.” There were deep and dreadful scars across both wrists.

“Australia did that,” she said, “Australia did that to me. All
their fine talk about a new life and a second chance. Well, I can tell you it was far worse than the old life, far worse.”

“But the Bishop of Adelaide . . . ?”

She pushed down her sleeves, picked up the book off the floor and resumed her seat.

“The Bishop of Adelaide was another whited sepulchre — he and his wife both. At first it was all smiles and commissions to do altar cloths and stoles and the like, but they had a daughter for whom they had plans. And when the curate of a nearby church began to take a lively interest in me — I did nothing to encourage it — they soon told him of my background, that I had been in prison, and he turned away from me towards their rabbit-toothed daughter. He proposed, was of course accepted, and they had the nerve to ask me to make the wedding kneelers, ‘since your work is so very fine, my dear.' Well, of course I refused, and I asked to be transferred somewhere else. I said that I keenly felt their dislike of me and it was making me ill.

“Out of spite or perhaps real cruelty, they sent me away to a horrible rough settlement, where I was supposed to be a housekeeper but was really nothing but a slave to a drunken vicar in a rundown vicarage, nothing but a slave. And I, a clergyman's daughter! The way he ran that parish was a disgrace. There was no one of any culture within a hundred miles, the women — great red-faced, rough things — were as bad as the men, and the children ran wild, like animals. I wrote to the bishop, I begged him to find me another situation, but his wife replied that they were sorry, they had done all they could, then quoted second Thessalonians to me: ‘Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.'

“And then this, this beast, this disgrace to the cloth had the
nerve to ask me to marry him. I couldn't stand it. I stole his razor and slit my wrists.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, “you poor woman.”

“I wanted to die, but he found me and took me to a hospital, where they locked me up and said I was mad. I was there for a long time until they finally let me go.

“And then I made my way to Sydney and threw myself on the mercy of the nuns there. I told them I wanted to return to England and would work for them, do anything, not just needlework, if they would let me earn passage money. They were good women, but frugal. There was a story you read to us once, about a girl who is assigned some monumental task which seems as though it can never be completed. That's how I felt. And always hungry, always practising ‘self-denial.' Except for the Mother Superior and her pets, of course, you could smell the wine on their breath, see the cake crumbs at the corners of their mouths. But I said nothing, just worked away, all for the love of God and the sake of a few shillings a month. Finally, this year, I had enough for the cheapest passage. How happy I was to see the shores of that dreadful country shrink into nothing.

“I kept to myself on the ship. The passengers in my class were mostly ticket-of-leave men and a scattering of missionary wives and children. Few women ever return from that fatal shore. As soon as I arrived in London, I went straight to Urania Cottage to find Mr. Dickens or Miss Burdett-Coutts or someone and demand that they help me. Only Urania Cottage was to let, Miss Burdett-Coutts was out of the country — or so her servants said — and Mr. Dickens was at his new home outside Rochester. I wrote to him at once, but he did not favour me with an answer. However, I have a bit of money left over from my
work at the convent, and I have temporarily put up in a respectable lodging house. It was in the landlady's parlour that I found a set of Mr. Dickens's novels, and as I could barely afford a newspaper and my evenings were long and lonely — the landlady, a widow, has a group of friends and invited me to join them in the evenings, but I could tell this was only out of politeness — I began reading.

“He is nothing if not prolific, but I am a quick reader. Last month I finally got to this one” — she banged her fist on the book in her lap — “saw what he had done and became determined to show him up, to reveal him to the world as the fiend he really is. Frankly, if he knows what's good for him he'll offer to settle out of court. We will agree to that, but once we have the money, which will be distributed fairly, according to the degree of insult — remember his old marks system — once we have the money, then we'll publish it to the world and ruin him.”

“Can you do that? I know nothing about the law, but surely if you agree to a settlement, you agree to keep quiet. You probably sign something to that effect, perhaps a bond.”

“I care nothing for bonds or silences.”

I stared at her. (Hopkins had fallen asleep during Elisabeth's tirade; I wondered what was his role in all this.)

“Mr. Dickens is a wealthy man. He will be able to hire the very best lawyers. Do you really think you have a chance?”

“Listen,” she said — she was practically spitting — “in the case of this dwarf, Mrs. Hill her name is, she was a neighbour of Mr. Dickens and he caricatured her in
Great Expectations
. Have you read it?

“Yes. I've read up to and including
Bleak House
, which, if you've read it, should put you off lawsuits, I would think.”

She ignored this.

“Well, he made Mrs. Hill into Miss Mowcher, do you remember her?”

“Yes, she's a dwarf. But wasn't she ultimately seen as wise and kind?”

“What difference does that make? Suppose you called attention in public to Hopkins's deformity, ridiculed it, but then went on to say, ‘but his left hand is quite beautiful, with long, slender fingers,' do you think you would make Hopkins feel any better? And in my case, he mentions no redeeming features, none. In any event, Mrs. Hill wrote to the man, and then her solicitor wrote and threatened a suit, and Mr. Dickens agreed to change the character when the one-volume edition was published. That's what you must have read.”

I nodded.

“Had I seen this book in its monthly parts, I would have been on to him right away, and I would not have settled for an apology or a promise of minor changes. It's too late for that now, of course, so we shall attack him head on.”

How sure she was in her rage. Her eyes glittered; she almost seemed to preen herself, like a bird.

“I still have not read the book,” I said, “and so I do not know what he wrote — about either of us. And I'll tell you frankly that I'm not sure I want to read it.”

“You must! You must! I am counting on your help. He pretended you were a great favourite of his and he has used you badly.”

“How do you know it's me?”

She smiled a horrible smile.

“You may have changed your last name when you were at Urania Cottage, but once I recognized the physical likeness —
and the girl in the novel is very like — then I did a little sleuthing. I went to the Foundling and said I was a long-lost friend just back from Australia. They confirmed that it was you. He calls you ‘Tattycoram.'”

“Mother,” said Rosie, running in with the dogs at her heels, “who were those queer people walking away from our street? They looked like blackbirds, a rook and a starling.” I could not answer her, I was in such distress.

Elisabeth had insisted upon leaving the book with me, and that night, after Rosie was in bed, I regarded it with great misgiving. I felt deeply sorry for Elisabeth, but I did not want anything to do with her, nor, however I might have been caricatured by my former employer, did I want anything to do with this lawsuit. She had left her address and I was supposed to communicate with her as soon as possible. Supposing I just wrapped up the book and sent it back unread. Would she then leave me alone?

Twice I picked up the book,
Little Dorrit
— it was a thick volume of hundreds of pages — and twice I put it down again. I had not promised to read it. I thought of the fat boy who sat in the lodge at the entrance to Doughty Street, how Mr. Dickens had said, “I conjure 'em up in my writing and then they appear in the flesh.” The reverse, of course, could be equally true. They appear and then he turns them into fiction. Tattycoram. How could he have used that hated name? How could he?

In the end my curiosity got the better of me; I began to read: “Thirty years ago Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.” In the second chapter both Elisabeth and I make our appearance.

“It's not you, Hattie,” Sam said.

I had just finished reading aloud the last chapter. “Except for the physical description and the use of that name, she's nothing like you.”

I smiled at him. “Well of course you would say that, my dear, but the truth is she is like me — or one part of me as I was when I was younger. So that girl is both me and not me. There is a Tattycoram inside, there always has been, one who is fierce and proud, one who would have been capable of great resentment if she'd had to be a maid to somebody like Pet. As it was, I had Miss Georgy to contend with, and I couldn't always dampen down my temper when she was around.” I told him about the “costume” for the fancy-dress party and how I threw a teacup against the wall.

“That was when Mr. Dickens advised me to count to two and twenty when my temper was up. He was very good to me. I should have been dismissed and sent back to the Foundling that night. He was always good to me, Sam, and so was she.”

“It was not nice to use your real name and your appearance.”

“Well, my real name isn't Tattycoram, remember? It's Harriet Coram. But he remembered what the raven said — taught by Miss Georgy, I'm pretty certain — and he saw how deeply I resented it. He is a man who notices such things. It isn't nice, what he's done, but he understands her resentment, and he understands about foundlings and children born out of wedlock.
He was a good friend of Mr. Brownlow's and took an interest in the hospital. I do feel used, nevertheless, but I can't seem to get worked up about it.”

“The portrait of Miss Wade is quite savage.”

“Yes it is, although isn't it strange that he makes her such a handsome woman? Elisabeth was never handsome, although she was a far cry better looking when she lived at Urania Cottage than she is now, poor thing. He has made us both better-looking than we really were.”

“Not you, Hattie.”

“Yes, me.” I sighed. “I can see why she is so angry. He has forced her to look in the mirror, and even though he has changed the circumstances, even though parts of the story are completely made up, that long bit where she relates her history is exactly in her voice. She has always been her own worst enemy.”

“Would you sue, if you were in her place?”

“I don't think so, but I don't really know what it feels like to
be
her. Even if she is partly to blame, her life has been one of disappointment and despair. Honestly, I don't think the papers will run her ad, for that advertisement itself might seem to be libellous.”

“What will you do?”

“What would you advise me to do? I don't want my name to be added to any petition, yet I feel she will implicate me anyway. I can't very well deny that I was the model for Tattycoram. Nor can he, if she confronts him.”

“I think you should send the book back and simply tell her you are not interested in pursuing the matter. Just that. Don't admit to the likeness, don't seem to encourage her in any way, don't wish her good luck.”

Our sheep had recently been sheared, and Rosie and I were busy teasing, carding and spinning. Our hands were smooth and soft from handling the fleece. That night I felt such a strong desire to touch my husband, to be assured of his reality in my life, that I offered to massage his back. He never took his shirt off in public, not even on the hottest of summer days, and I was the only one who was intimate with the dreadful raised welts that criss-crossed his body, all the way from his shoulders to his waist and below. As I kneaded his muscles with my softened hands and traced with my fingers the dreadful souvenirs of his life as a convict, I thought of Elisabeth and those self-inflicted scars on her wrists and of her solitude and unhappiness. I remembered Grandfather and how he would touch a person's face with his fingertips, reading the soul within. He would have read Sam's scars and known the history of his suffering, have touched Elisabeth's wrists and absorbed her desperation. All I could do was to rub my husband's back and let him know how much I loved him.

He turned over and smiled at me. “Ah, Hattie, that was grand.”

Later, just before I fell asleep, I whispered to him, “Are you still awake?”

“Hmm. What is it?”

“Sam, the Misses Bray are great admirers of Mr. Dickens, as are the schoolmaster and his wife. There may be others nearby, and they must all have read that novel. The Misses Bray at least would recognize me, yet they have never said a word.”

“Well there you are then,” Sam said, and turned to sleep.